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Saturday, June 25, 2016

At the beginning of The Siege of Petersburg: The Battles for the Weldon Railroad, August 1864, I called the Petersburg Campaign the Rodney Dangerfield ("I don't get no respect") of Civil War campaigns. Since then, my search for regimental statistics from the Army of Tennessee (to provide perspective on the Petersburg Regiment, the 12th Virginia Infantry), has taken me west to fights from Belmont and Logan's Crossroads through Nashville and Bentonville. What I have found suggests to me that Atlanta, not Petersburg, is the real Rodney Dangerfield of Civil War campaigns.

Why do I say that? The Siege of Petersburg was the longest, bloodiest action of the war. On the other hand, the siege was indecisive. The Atlanta Campaign decided the war. Furthermore, there are probably fewer books on the Atlanta Campaign and its subsidiary fights than on the Siege of Petersburg and the actual battles it comprises.

Saturday, June 11, 2016

As I gather material, I come across many documents garnered from National Battlefield Parks. Many are cited to the respective National Battlefield Park. This is not an appropriate citation. Most, if not all, these documents, come from other repositories. They should be cited to the repository as well as to the National Battlefield Park. Why? Things get lost at National Battlefield Parks. (The names are omitted to protect the guilty.) Recently, I tried to get from a National Battlefield Park a document cited to it and to nowhere else (i.e., where the National Battlefield Park actually got the document from). The curator could not find the document. That is going to put the author who cited the document in a very awkward position. When others try to find the document at the National Battlefield Park in question, and it is unavailable, what are they going to think? Does the author have a copy of the document? How is he going to prove that he did not make it all up? So when you obtain a document from a National Battlefield Park, make sure you know where it originally came from. It is more important to cite the original repository than the National Battlefield Park.

Saturday, June 4, 2016

Another difference of opinion I have with Castel and McMurry about the Atlanta Campaign is on the dissatisfaction they feel about General Sherman's performance. Sherman maneuvered too much for them and assaulted too little. He ought to have annihilated Johnston's Army of Tennessee as early as the beginning of the campaign, at Dalton. Both Castel and McMurry are sure that if General Thomas had been in charge instead of Sherman, "almost surely the Union victory would have been easier, quicker, and more complete." [Castel, Decision in the West, 565]

Maneuver is as legitimate at tactic as assault and if properly done, it is far less costly. Castel and McMurry would do well to read Hans Delbruck's history of the art of warfare. The Civil War was not fought in a silo. Neither the Petersburg Campaign of 1864 nor the Atlanta Campaign were fought in silos. European soldiers did not infest the staffs of the major American armies for nothing. They wanted to learn from the conflict.

Frederick the Great, toward the end of his life, admitted that he had fought too much and maneuvered too little. Compare the casualties in 1864 that Grant's army group suffered with the losses Sherman's army group had. Sherman operated far more economically. True, Grant faced a tougher opponent. But Sherman operated much farther from the nearest port than Grant, with a far more vulnerable supply line.

Sherman won the decisive campaign of the war. He may not have eliminated the Army of Tennessee. He should at least have eliminated Hardee's Corps at Jonesborough. But every commander makes mistakes. Grant made them. Caesar made them. Hannibal made them. Alexander made them. Sherman did what had to be done--capture Atlanta before the November election.

Castel and McMurry fail to articulate sufficiently why they think Thomas would have done a better job. Hood's wrecked Army of Tennessee at Nashville was not Johnson's rejuvenated Army of Tennessee at Dalton.

No victorious general need apologize for having had numerical superiority over his foe. How many generals have failed to win despite numerical superiority? One need only look at the Civil War for examples. Little Mac, John Pope, Ambrose Burnside, Fighting Joe Hooker, Benjamin F. Butler, "Napoleon" P. Banks, and, yes, Ulysses S. Grant, probably a greater general than Sherman, failed where Sherman succeeded.

Take a look at the statue of Sherman in New York City's Grand Army square. That's how Sherman's countrymen saw him. Probably his soldiers, too, and such of Grant's as survived the Overland Campaign and the Siege of Petersburg.

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About Me

A native of Illinois, John Horn received a B.A. in English and Latin from New College (Sarasota, Florida) in 1973 and a J.D. from Columbia Law School in 1976. He has practiced law in the Chicago area since graduation, occasionally holding local public office, and living in Oak Forest with his wife and law partner, H. Elizabeth Kelley, a native of Richmond, Virginia. They have three children. He and his wife travel to the Old Dominion each year to visit relatives, battlefields, and various archives. He has published articles in Civil War Times, Illustrated and America's Civil War, and his books include The Destruction of the Weldon Railroad and The Petersburg Campaign. With Hampton Newsome (author of Richmond Must Fall) and Dr. John G. Selby (author of Virginians at War), Horn co-edited Civil War Talks: The Further Reminiscences of George S. Bernard & His Fellow Veterans.